Politics

Thomas Williams was staying at his grandmother’s Southwest Baltimore home in February 2016 when two masked men barged through the front door looking for his cousin. Once upstairs, the gunmen shot and killed a close family friend, then shot through a bedroom door where Williams had barricaded himself, protecting his grandmother and little brother. Williams was shot and suffered a broken arm.

A new Democratic poll on the Anne Arundel County executive race shows the Republican challenger, County Councilmember Jessica Haire, with a narrow lead over the Democratic incumbent, Steuart Pittman. But the poll also shows Pittman prevailing after voters are told more about the two candidates — and an outside organization seeking to boost Pittman’s re-election bid has set about to do just that. The poll was paid for by Future Anne Arundel, a political action committee that formed earlier this year to support Pittman but is independent from his campaign. The survey of 931 likely voters, taken Sept. 14-18, showed Haire with 45%, Pittman with 41% and 14% undecided. Conducted by Change Research, a national Democratic polling firm, the poll had a 3.6-point margin of error — meaning Haire’s lead was just outside the margin.

A photo behind Wes Moore’s desk reminds him of where he started in politics, at a moment when his boss was consumed by the problem of public safety in Baltimore. The photo of Moore with Kurt Schmoke is much more than a reminder. In one way, it points to progress: Schmoke was the first elected Black mayor of Baltimore, and Moore could become the first Black governor of Maryland. In another way, the image underscores a challenge that whomever the next governor is will face come January. With Maryland’s largest city registering over 300 homicides each of the last seven years since Republican Gov. Larry Hogan took office, Moore said he’d prioritize public safety by hiring more parole officers and using state resources to help solve crime.

Heather Mizeur’s campaign for Maryland’s First Congressional District seat has raised $1,570,809 so far, more than any of the last four Democratic candidates who came before her, according to Federal Election Commission records. House election experts, however, only give her a slim chance to unseat Republican incumbent Rep. Andy Harris in November. He has held the seat since 2011 and has raised $955,507 so far in his campaign for reelection, according to the FEC. “Our elections are not really contests between competing visions and candidates of different backgrounds and qualifications anymore so much as they are censuses of how many Democrats and Republicans live in a given area,” said Dave Wasserman, senior editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

The Democratic majority of the Anne Arundel County Council voted down a controversial bill that would have banned outside parties from being authorized to fly their flags on county flagpoles. Pasadena Republican Council member Nathan Volke, the legislation’s sponsor, initially introduced a broader bill banning all flags from county flagpoles other than the U.S., state and county standards. After community pushback, Volke revised the bill, but still failed to get the necessary votes at Monday night’s County Council meeting. The legislation failed along party lines with only Volke’s Republican colleagues, Amanda Fiedler of Arnold and Jessica Haire of Edgewater.